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FAQs

It might seem all fancy pants, but for Gary Winter, landscape design is simply about making the most of an outdoor space for people to enjoy. He brings harmony to places by drawing up unique plans to suit people, their pets and material preferences.

By observing the site, listening to clients and drawing on professional expertise, a good landscape designer transforms concepts into concrete plans that can be implemented by landscapers (and that includes the DIY landscapers out there). A landscape designer is both creative and practical and they communicate and solve problems left, right and centre.

Gary has two decades worth of know-how in horticulture, landscape construction and design. This distinctive combo, and his finely tuned communication and problem solving skills, mean he’s well equipped to nut out theoretical and practical elements of any garden design project.

Gary’s a good bloke who’s not really interested in gardens that are just for show. He’s more interested in you and your relationship to the place. He’s keen on creating spaces that align harmoniously with nature, and in facilitating harmonious client experiences.

The short answer is, “it depends”. Design is not an off-the shelf item, and there are different stages and levels of work. But as a starter you can book a design consult visit for $330. If you like our ideas and want to engage us for the next bit, a standard house block design plan starts around $3,850. It’s all going to come down to your property parameters and specific needs. Our transparent quoting process means you’ll understand costs upfront. We can also develop plans to meet your short, medium and long term goals so you can budget accordingly.

We’re pretty good at reading people and situations, but we’re not yet fully qualified mind readers. So we always ask prospective clients to complete a questionnaire to tell us about your lifestyle, workplace or community needs of the space you want spruced up.

If we’re going to design the dream place to suit you and your people it’s imperative that we visit the site and have a conversation with your head honchos. The design consult allows us to offer advice, exchange ideas and size one another up for future work.

1. When you get in touch we’ll have a general conversation. Then we shoot you a client questionnaire so you can explain more about your project.

2.You might then engage us for a Design Consult. That’s three hundred and thirty dollars well spent to have us visit for an hour, provide on-site expertise and develop a design brief and plan offer.

3. Happy days, you like our ideas and give us the thumbs up to proceed to design stage. We’ll conduct site surveys, develop a draft concept for you to review, then put together the Landscape Design Master Plan (LDMP).

4. Your design is ready to roll and we handover your plans so you can engage the landscaping contractor to implement them.

5. We can help you to find a landscaper. We can also project manage the job or to do the construction job ourselves.

These are the official drawings we deliver so that the design can be read and understood by the people who do the build or issue permits. Our standard LDMP is a set of four plans; the concept plan is the broad design drawn to scale; the planting plan shows where plants go; the quantities plan is the basic site coverage that helps calculate costings; and the dimensions plan has all of the site measurements. We also include landscape design specifics and construction general notes.

Depending on the scale, your project might benefit from additional plans such as 3D walkthroughs, irrigation or lighting (just to name a few). We’ll discuss these options with you at the outset. .

There are a few variables that influence the delivery timeframe. We’ll communicate these with you from the start. As a rough guide, a standard residential block takes about 3-4 weeks to design.

Over the first couple of weeks we’ll conduct our site survey and present the draft concept. After your feedback we finalise the design plans and hand them over. The build stage then has its own separate time span to be negotiated with contractors.

The steps to getting started depend on the size of the project. There might be one or a team of tradespeople to engage, the project might require permits or additional documentation e.g. soil reports, planning permits, building permits or engineer drawings etc.

Have a chat with us so we can point you in the right direction. We’ll suggest an approach and project timelines. If these logistics seem like too much to handle, you can engage us to coordinate the design delivery on your behalf.

It’s a great joy for us to support you through the ideas stage to design and real life implementation. Gary Winter has more than 20 years of experience as a landscaper and horticulturist so he’s a handy guy to have on your team. We can tailor a role depending how ‘hands on’ you want us to be.

We can recommend landscapers and tradespeople, or source and supply plants. We can prepare ‘Scope of Works’ documents to support you to select landscaping contractors.

We can support ‘Design Intent’ by meeting with your contractors to make sure they understand the plans. We can coordinate site logistics or take full control of the project management stage. Subject to availability, you might even hire Gary Winter Landscape Design to build your garden. Let’s talk about what you need.

Any transformation project can be stressful if you don’t find a landscape designer who knows their stuff, takes the time to get to know you and communicates with you to collaboratively achieve your vision for the space.

Our goal at Gary Winter Landscape Design is to make it an enjoyable experience with positive outcomes for you and us. We’re clear communicators and trouble-shooters with processes in place so that you understand where things are at, every step of the way. Sometimes clients have conflicting ideas, budget pressures or project sticking points. Gary Winter maintains humility and humanity to navigate these matters, to find solid compromises that bring your garden to life. Stress free.